I thought it would be a good day to finally tell y'all the story of how Waylon came to be. Well, not exactly that story; the story of how he got his name. I'll try to give you the short version. There wasn't a whole lot of music playing in the Bornac house when I was a kid, but for a short stretch we were knee deep in country. Awesome country that I just couldn't get enough of: George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Tom T. Hall, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and, yep, Waylon Jennings. Those records, those pictures, those sleeves, those sounds shaped a love for music that changed me. As I grew, my musical tastes grew apart from my parents somewhat. Like a lot of kids, we didn't always have a lot of things in common. My dad and I would bond over ZZ Top or Van Halen every once in a while, but we certainly never sat around listening to records. I thought music was something all my own, something I had discovered.
The day my Dad died is a blur. A phone call from my mom overlapped with hazy plans, all made worse by confusion and impatience. Becca and I (I'm sure mostly Becca) ended up driving all night from South Carolina to Illinois, also all a blur. One of us was driving as the sun came up and we pulled into my parents driveway. After the hugs and tears and the haze, I noticed my dad's things sitting on the counter where he had left them for a hundred years. If he was there, his things were there: his wallet, some loose change, his pocket watch and today...a Waylon Jennings tape. I picked it up and my mom told me he was a fan, always had been. That moment burned into me, an instant memory, an unspoken history that the old man and I had always shared. I'll always think that we both loved him because he liked to call himself an outlaw, but at the end of the day he was a hard working family man.
As soon as we found out we were having a boy, we started talking about naming him after my dad. Unfortunately Ronald Patrick Bornac, or any combination of those names wasn't sitting quite right with us. We kept the idea in the back of our minds, and started thinking about other options. After a few near misses and failed attempts, Becca said 'what about Waylon?' I don't remember how long it took us to finally decide on it, but I knew pretty quickly it was a perfect choice.
So Pop, if you're reading this somewhere, and Waylon, when you read this someday, know this: you would have been fast friends (despite your obvious difference in age.) I see a lot of similar traits in you guys already: playful eyes, kind souls full of love, easy smiles, and awesome, awesome hair.
Happy Birthday Dad
2/1/1943 - 7/16/2003
